It sometimes happened, as we have said,
that in some monastery or other, no monastic was found qualified to
undertake any of these duties. It then fell to the prior or abbat to
seek the assistance of professional outsiders. The paging and
rubrication, putting in initials in the spaces left by the common
scribe, and, if needed, the addition of pictures or marginal drawings
and ornaments, caricatures, heraldic illustrations, etc., were the
proper work of the illuminator, but it often happened that the same man
had to do the whole work from the commencement to the finish. The
Chronicon Trudonense tells us: "Graduale unum propria manu formavit,
purgavit, pinxit, sulcabit, scripsit, illuminavit, musiceque notavit
syllabatim." Several of our old English chronicles, of which the MSS.
exist in the British Museum and elsewhere, seem to be of this
description.
Reference has been made to the _scriptoria_ at Winchester, _i.e._ at St.
Swithun's and the New Minster. It is the latter foundation which is
usually referred to in speaking of Winchester work. The Monastery of the
Holy Trinity or the New Minster was founded in the first year of his
reign by King Edward, son of Alfred, no doubt in obedience to his
father's wish, if not absolutely in the terms of his will.
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